Following this topic comparing Incognito’s approach to Bitcoin anonymity to others, here is a quick tutorial of how Alice can send, receive, store, and trade Bitcoin completely anonymously with Privacy Bitcoin.

The only gate to enter the Incognito network is the Incognito Wallet. So, to use Privacy Bitcoin, Alice should make sure that she has downloaded the wallet app in the newest version. In case she did not have the app yet, she can get it here.

With Privacy Bitcoin, there are basically 3 general steps of the process Alice will go through.

Currently, only the Ethereum bridge is trustless. Soon, the Trustless Portal connecting to other Blockchains will be built (for Bitcoin, it is expected to launch in March 2020).

As it takes time to design and build trustless bridges the right way, a pragmatic solution is to provide temporary trusted bridges while trustless bridges are built out. Now Alice will temporarily access Incognito mode via a trusted bridge powered by Incognito that connects Incognito Chain and Bitcoin Blockchain. We will update this walkthrough when Portal is finally launched.

Turn on & Turn off Incognito mode

Turn it on

In the Incognito dictionary, we call this step ‘shielding’. Turning on the Incognito mode for your Bitcoin is like putting a shield in front of your Bitcoin for the purpose of protecting your on-chain financial privacy.

Alice opens the Incognito Wallet app in the newest version and select Privacy BTC from the account balance screen.

Alice selects Deposit and a normal BTC address appears. To turn her Bitcoin into Privacy Bitcoin, Alice just needs to send her Bitcoin into this address.

Let’s say Alice has more than 0.016 BTC in her Exodus wallet and Alice wants to turn 0.016 BTC into 0.016 pBTC. Alice sends 0.016 BTC to the address shown above.

After just a matter of minutes, Alice sees her Bitcoin arrive as 0.016 Privacy Bitcoin. Alice’s Bitcoin now is shielded.

Turn it off

To turn off the Incognito mode, Alice need to clicks on the three dots symbol on the top-right corner and select Withdraw.

Once she fills in her personal Bitcoin wallet address, the amount of Privacy Bitcoin she wants to unshield, and the amount and currency of the transaction fee she wants to pay, Alice is good to go. Let’s say Alice wants to turn 0.01 Privacy Bitcoin to normal Bitcoin. Her Exodus BTC address is as below

This is what Alice fills in before clicking Withdraw.

The whole process takes a few minutes to finish. After that, Alice sees 0.01 Bitcoin in the normal version arrive in her Exodus wallet.

Enjoy complete privacy

Privacy Bitcoin is a privacy coin on the Incognito blockchain that retains a 1:1 value with Bitcoin. It means Privacy Bitcoin can be stored and sent & received in complete anonymity just like privacy cryptocurrencies (Monero, Zcash, etc.,). Unlike other cryptocurrencies, Privacy Bitcoin be traded anonymously on the Incognito pDEX.

Send Bitcoin anonymously

Tap Send button firstly

Alice needs to fill in the Incognito address that she wants to anonymously send Bitcoin to and how many Bitcoin she wants to send. Let’s say Alice wants to send Bob 0.01 BTC anonymously. Bob needs to open his Incognito wallet and tap Receive button to get his Incognito address.

This is what Alice fills in before clicking Send

The transaction is executed and Bob sees that he has just received 0.01 BTC in complete anonymity.

Normally, when you give others your BTC address, they can find out how many Bitcoin you are storing or your historical transaction data. If you don’t put your Bitcoin wallet address online or give others your BTC address, how can curious people find out your Blockchain ID on the block explorer site? They find your personal wallet from the hash of transactions that you were involved in.

With Privacy Bitcoin, even when your address is known by others, you can still store Bitcoin without no one knowing your Bitcoin account balance. Let’s head to the block explorer site of Incognito Chain and paste Alice’s address on the search bar. No result found.

Also, as shown in the pics above, the pages of the Tx hash don’t let the sender address, the receiver address, nor the amount to be exposed. So, Bob, any others transacting with Alice, or any others collecting the database of Alice’s transaction cannot find a chance to track Alice’s Privacy Bitcoin account balance. It means that she is storing her Bitcoin completely anonymously.

Trade Bitcoin anonymously

Since Incognito also builds trustless portal/bridge to connect to blockchains other than Bitcoin, you can also trade Bitcoin to other cryptocurrencies in complete anonymity on pDEX.

FYI, pDEX is the privacy DEX built on top of Incognito Chain. On pDEX, privacy coins issued on Incognito Chain, including Privacy Bitcoin, are traded in pairs with each others decentralizedly. Since each privacy coin has the 1:1 underlying asset in the normal version, trading on pDEX means trading BTC, ETH & ERC20 tokens, etc., decentralizedly and anonymously.

To trade Bitcoin anonymously, Alice needs to tap on the pDEX button on the bottom-right corner.

Hi @Andogen. Welcome to Incognito community!!! I recognize you 'cause I’ve been watching the Monero community for a long time and remember that you are a one of the super active members in the community

Hi Aaron. Thanks for pointing it out. The trustless bridge for Bitcoin is in the process of implementation. Expectedly, we will have it in Q2. The reason for this is the change in the direction of product development. In stead of building privacy things for Bitcoin community, we will have a number of privacy stuff for Ethereum community (pUniswap and maybe pCompound) to be launched in April/May. Can’t wait to see these amazing things being live

This is where I get confused, as I have taken all these steps moved my BTC to the pDEX and the BTC to USD, BTC to XMR, (etc.) were all at market value so trading was fair and I got the correct amount of XMR for my BTC in my anonymous trade.

Now a week or so later I go to do the same thing and loose $250 because I did not understand that you don’t always run on market value (or maybe you never do?) and I was left with .6 XMR about $40 dollars at the time from my $250 BTC trade.

I have already spoken to some moderators about this and yes I did have two times to verify that I was only getting .6 but at the time I was supposed to be getting 6 something XMR so I didn’t look close enough (my fault) but for new people this can be devastating like it was for me.

They should not have even let me make that trade due to how lopsided it was, and whoever staked that $40 of XMR to get my $250 your welcome… but I very much dislike you.

Liquidity determines the price of your coins when you trade. For the best rates, trade through prv first. BTC->PRV, then PRV->XMR. The transaction fees are small and you get the best rates since PRV pairs have the best liquidity.

Sorry to hear you lost your money man. Always double/triple check when you make a trade, on any exchange.